The invention relates to improvements to a radiographic imaging process and apparatus for the process. In particular, an embodiment of the invention and equivalents is an apparatus for fluoroscopic imaging and a method for monitoring the evolution of an action procedure in an angiography operating theater.
Vascular or angiography operating theaters are increasingly used for therapeutic applications. Some of these require anatomic information about vascular pathologies encountered and to be treated, and also functional information, particularly in the operational neuroradiology domain. These applications include endovascular treatments concerning cerebral vascular accidents, angioplasties of the carotid and placement of carotidian stents and intracranial stents. Knowledge of functional information is very useful for all these applications, before the surgical procedure is carried out, in order to make appropriate therapeutic decisions, and also during the procedure to be able to evaluate the effects of the treatment applied in real time, and to decide whether to stop it or to continue it if necessary.
Presently, the required functional information is obtained using magnetic resonance or calculated tomography devices, and not using an X-ray angiography or fluoroscopic device, whereas the procedure itself is carried out using an X-ray angiography device, and cannot be done with magnetic resonance or calculated tomography systems.
Means for processing can be used to deduce a three-dimensional model of the region of interest of the object, such as a patient, starting from a sequence of two-dimensional images thus acquired, in a known manner. In general, all that a medical practitioner, such as a surgeon, can use during a procedure is a single 3D model corresponding to a sequence of 2D images acquired at the beginning of the procedure.
Therefore, it is not possible to monitor the action of instruments on the anatomy of the object on which the procedure is being done (or the effects of the therapeutic action taking place on the treated tissues) on the 3D model. Thus, a medical practitioner can only obtain anatomic information from this method. Consequently, the object will firstly be examined either by magnetic resonance or by calculated tomography so as to obtain all functional information necessary to carry out the examination and the diagnostic. The object is then brought into the vascular operating theater for the therapy itself. This surgical procedure scheme is not sufficient to supply functional information that the medical practitioner might need during the procedure. At the present time, this problem is solved according to the state of the art by combining X-ray systems and magnetic resonance systems, for example, or calculated tomography systems, which lead to the combination of a vascular operating theater with a magnetic resonance or a calculated tomography unit, with an object operating table shared between the two systems. In these types of combined X-ray and magnetic resonance systems, for example, functional information is available in the magnetic resonance part while the surgical operation is done in the X-rays part. However, these systems are very complex, very expensive and occupy a lot of space (about the equivalent of two operating theaters). Consequently, in practice their use is limited to a very small number of locations.